St. Landry democrat., 1887-04-02
MEMS NERVOUSNESS.
Nervous Prostration an Affection Which
Iiaunts Men Equally With Women.

ness Is Cne peculiar attribute W Woilcil,
May not this be because it is unusually
men who write the physiologies, so that
woman might perhaps say, like the
lions in Esop's fable, that if the other
party had been the painters the case
would be different? Itwould be worth
while to consult the wife of the musical
enthusiast, for instance, who has car
ried his art to such a point that it
causes him and everybody else more
pain than pleasure, the man who must
have every door in the house deadened,
every carpet doubled; every visitor
seen by some one else before admit
lance, and the children banished to
regions inaccessible and inaudible.
Paganini, the greatest Of violinists, Is
reported DO have found existence an
absolute burden because it held so
many intolerable sounds; and many a
woman has found her husband, even
where unprofessional, claiming the
privilege of Paganini's sensitiveness
without his genius. Again, consider
the extremely nervous condition ex-
hibited by some perfectly healthy men
when called upon to appear before the
public to make few remarks, or
even introduce speaker.
The terrors of nervous prostration--
that calamity which seems new foe,
but is really only new name for an
old one-haunt men almost equally
hold Ion
against its approaches, which is doubt
full, they succumb almost more hope
lessly, and need longer for cure. l
know young men of fine physique who.
having for d year or two undertaken
to combine too many different ankle
ties-for instance, bread-earning oc-
cupation and the study of aprofession-
have taken to their bed in utter help
lessness and frequent tears, and re-
manned there for years. "More pangs
and fears than wars or women have
were their penalty for an over-taxatlon
of the nervous system. The fact that,
as the life insurance companies tell US,
women on the whole out1ive men,
seems to indicate that their nerves, il
more sensitive than those of men, are
more elastic, and offer better re. ist-
ance to the wear and tear of events; for
we must remember that it is not the
great things of life which prove ex-
hausting. but the small ones, because
these call out less in the way of re-
sources to meet them, just as people
take cold more readily after warm
bath than after cold one, for want OF
reaction.
There exists in every household
short and easy method of testing the
comparative nervousness of the sexes.
Take the very sweetest and most do
nestle of men, the most hometown
and equable, and see if he can have
patience with the children, day in and
day out, as can wife much less gifted
by nature with these fine qualities. The
children may be the sweetest ever
born, and yet each will be pretty sure
to pass through stages in its develop
ment when its cross-questionings, its
needless resistings its cronic deafnesses,
its endless ''What?' and "Why?" and
"Whom did you say?' will furnish
grounds for practice for saintship. Not
that all mothers are equal to this task
far from it; but when it comes to
nerves, the average mother takes all
this trial and pressure in q way that
puts the average father to shame. /
knew shrewd woman who, whenever
her husband had given her a lecture on
nervousness, used to contrive to have
him dress one or two of the children
for school on a winters morning,
after breakfast slightly be-
lated. The good man would
fall meekly into the trap, not clearly
remembering the vastness of the Ia
bor-the adjustings and the tyings and
the buttonings; the leggings and the
overdrawers and the arctic shoes; the
jacket, scarf, coat, gloves, mittens
wristers; the hat or cap or hood, to b.
pulled and pushed and tied in prope,
position; the complete way in which all
these things, besides being put on
have to be mutually made fast by
strings and buttons and safety-pins, Sc
that the child thus dressed is mode
of compressed packing, and could, Xix.
a well-packed barrel of china, be sem
around the world without injury.
Calm must be the spirit, high the pur-
pose, of the father who reaches the end
of this complex task without word OF
Impotence, while the wife whom he
calls nervous has long since taken off
his hand the 9th or child assigned to
him, and has long since with deft
hands dressed her, and given one
patient, final, all comprehending
twitch, and the whole thing is DONE
If you doubt whether men are, ON the
whole, and in their own way, as nerv-
Gus as women, test them with getting
the children ready for school, and re-